Italian airports

In the air

SMOOTH running is a source of pride in Milan, Italy's financial and industrial capital. The efficiency starts the moment visitors land at Linate airport. Less than ten kilometres (six miles), only a 15-minute taxi ride, from the centre of Milan, the airport has speedily funnelled bankers, brokers, businessmen and fashion models into the city ever since air travel began. Too bad that the Italian government is about to gum up Milan's well-oiled machinery with a typical Mediterranean muddle.

If the government has its way, from October 25th foreign airlines will begin flying to and from Malpensa airport, 53 kilometres—at least an hour's drive—from Milan. A year ago the transport minister issued a decree that will in theory close Linate to all flights except those connecting Milan and Rome. As foreign airlines were quick to point out, this rule discriminates heavily in favour of Alitalia, Italy's oft-resuscitated national carrier.

Three-quarters of Italy's international air traffic is generated in northern Italy, with Milan alone responsible for one-third. At present, many travellers make short hops from Linate to Zurich, Frankfurt, Paris or London in order to catch intercontinental flights. The foreign airlines complain that obliging such short-haul flights to use Malpensa will give Alitalia an unfair advantage in a market in which it is currently languishing (see chart). After the move, it will be the only carrier that can use Linate to feed its intercontinental flights, which leave from Rome.

The European Commission in Brussels is inclined to agree with the foreign airlines. On August 17th an advisory committee endorsed a ruling by Neil Kinnock, the EU's transport commissioner, that the Italian government's plans to evict foreign airlines from Linate infringed the EU's market-access rules. If the Italian government refuses to change its plans, a meeting of the full commission on September 9th will almost certainly announce that the Malpensa decree breaks European law.

The commission acknowledges that Linate, with its single runway handling 14.3m passengers last year, is operating close to full capacity. Indeed, the EU helped to finance a 2,000 billion lire ($1.16 billion) project to create a new air hub at Malpensa, which handled 3.9m passengers in 1997. But the work at Malpensa has fallen so badly behind that moving all foreign flights there will create big delays for passengers. Improved road links with Milan are not expected to be ready until the end of 2000, and the airport will have to wait until next summer at the earliest for even a stop-gap railway service; an express railway to Milan will not be completed until some time after 2001. A taxi ride between Milan and Malpensa is likely to cost at least $85 each way, which is not much less than many regional air fares.

With little more than a month to go until the October deadline, nobody knows what might happen next. Pelle Svensson, general manager for southern Europe of SAS, a Scandinavian airline, fears that chaos is looming. Poor infrastructure will mean missed flights as well as problems for airline staff commuting to Malpensa. Moreover, grumbles Mr Svensson, the fees paid by airlines at Malpensa will probably be used to subsidise the cost of keeping Linate open for Alitalia.

Then there is the move itself. There have been no test-runs, says Alain Barbey, Swissair's Italian manager. Simply transferring equipment from Linate to Malpensa could necessitate the closure of Milan's ringroad and all the motorways and roads that lead to Malpensa. Italian improvisation is legendary, but muddling through is hardly a reassuring strategy for the running of international airports.

Political efforts to find a solution have stalled. A meeting on September 1st between Mr Kinnock and Claudio Burlando, the Italian minister for transport, got nowhere. Critics say the stand-off was predictable. For all its pro-European protestations, and its successful efforts to squeeze into Europe's single currency, Italy has often had a relaxed approach to EU rules. Suspicious foreigners think that the government is using the Malpensa case to test the commission's resolve to uphold European law.

What can be done? It would be fairer—but impractical—if Alitalia was forbidden to use its flights from Linate to feed its international flights from Rome. Nor would it be feasible to phase in the move to Malpensa: airlines that shift first would be at a disadvantage, and dividing the traffic of individual airlines between both Milan airports would double their costs.

The obvious solution is to open Malpensa officially on October 25th, but to keep operations running normally at Linate. The Italian authorities could then auction slots at the two airports to let the market put a value on Linate's convenience for passengers. But such an eminently sensible idea suffers from a terrible weakness: Alitalia would be deprived of the help that it eagerly awaits.